Luck

﻿﻿Do you think we make our own luck? At what I might hesitantly call the macro level, we obviously have little control over many major events that influence our lives. The level of privilege we are born into, genetics, aspects of our health and many other major tragedies and unexpected benefits that touch our lives unevenly without any control on our part.

But many times we are contributors to our luck. Most of the misfortune that has befallen me in my life has been directly attributable to my choices and actions (or inaction). Sure there were other factors and I can counterfactualise a rationale that it was just bad luck, but I'd be kidding myself. And if I don't learn from decisions that contribute to unfortunate consequences I am likely to suffer similar 'bad luck' in the future.

Whilst acknowledging luck hasn't always fallen my way, I like to think I have actually been the recipient of a considerable amount of good luck. While it might be tempting to self-aggrandisingly use similar logic to suggest a level of causative responsibility for all the good luck I have experienced, that is the kind of simplistic and false logic usually reserved for people like Andrew Bolt. And I really don't feel like being numbered in their company.

Like everyone else, I know that much of my good fortune has been a result of many random forces beyond my control. I am lucky enough to live ina wonderful place, have had a nurturing upbringing and have been fortunate with my health. Beyond that I understand that when good things happen in my life that I have worked towards, they can't be naively assigned to any single cause, but rather the confluence of a number of factors, most of which are outside of my control.

But not everything is beyond our control.

The actions of those around us are not technically under our control, but we do affect them with our own. The examples and precedents we set with our own actions have considerable impact on the opportunities we are presented with, so to do the strength of the friendships we build. I don't believe in karma as such, but I do believe the kind of effort you make with others get replayed in a roundabout way. People like to be around people that are nice to us, and to see them happy. While you can't make everyone like you, no matter how hard you try, you can pretty much guarantee how people will treat you if you are antagonistic. Secondly, being ready and willing to take opportunities plays an important part in how often we are ‘lucky’. Many times opportunities are given to us that go begging. We are too busy, it's too hard so we never even try. You don't win a raffle without a ticket (this is only an analogy- please don’t take it as encouragement to buy lotto tickets- I think of Tatts lotto as legalised theft) and life won't throw too many moments of good fortune at you if you don't put yourself out there to receive them. Laziness, uncertainty and pettiness can all act to prevent us recognising or acting on our opportunities. On a personal level, since I opened myself tothenecessity of failure, I have begun to achieve more, even as I fail more. While there have been a few moments of disappointments, there have also been a number of occasions I have felt very fortunate for.

Thirdly, how lucky we are is not objectively quantifiable. Our own perception and attributions are the final arbiters. If we constantly dwell on the negatives, these events take greater significance in our lives and we forget the moments of good fortune that often balance them. As in the previous paragraph, preoccupation with our misfortune can also cause us to miss an opportunity because we don't even realise it is there.

So while we certainly don’t make our own luck we do contribute do it in an important way. Many things will happen throughout our lives- some of them awful and others wonderful- that we have no way of changing. But many other things happen- both good and bad- that would not have happened if we had made different choices previously. We don’t choose to be lucky, but we can choose to increase (or decrease) our chances of being lucky. This isn’t to say that some of us aren’t the victims of undeserved tragedies that the rest of us don’t have to face. This is absolutely true. But many other times that we are envious of others’ good fortune may have more to do with our own choices and actions than we would like to admit.